Xiaomi 17T Pro Review

The new Xiaomi 17 is a great phone, and based on our review, we definitely enjoyed using it including all the specs and features it comes with.

The only issue is the price. With a starting price of PHP 53,999 for the base 256GB variant in the Philippines, it’s not exactly the most affordable Xiaomi phone on the market.

Thankfully, if budget is a problem, the more affordable Xiaomi 17T series is finally here. Specifically, we’re looking at the more powerful Xiaomi 17T Pro.

It’s a more affordable version of the Xiaomi 17 we’ve already come to love. However, as with the previous T models, it’s somewhat of a watered down version of their flagship 17. Despite this, the 17T Pro still features a beautiful display and Leica-tuned cameras.

Still, the question remains. Is the Xiaomi 17T Pro already good as is, or should buyers save up for the flagship version instead? Well, let’s find out.

Design and Construction

In terms of design, the Xiaomi 17T Pro looks very similar to the flagship Xiaomi 17. It features a clean back panel with the camera island located on the upper left corner.

The design of the camera island makes the phone look like it features a quad-camera system, but don’t be fooled. The Xiaomi 17T Pro only comes with a triple rear camera system. We’ll get to that in a bit.

As for the rest of the phone, I like how Xiaomi designed the 17T Pro to be nearly identical to that of the flagship Xiaomi 17. With that, it’s hard to distinguish which one is which, especially at first glance, but it does help make the phone look a lot more premium.

Then again, the design hasn’t really changed much from its predecessor, the Xiaomi 15T Pro, if we’re being honest.

At the end of the day, style is subjective. In our opinion, we like the design language of the phone. It’s hard to mistake it for anything other than a Xiaomi smartphone.

That’s not to say the 17T Pro isn’t a premium feeling phone. The frame is made out of aluminum, and the back panel feels nice to the touch.

Despite its relatively larger size compared to the Xiaomi 17, the Xiaomi 17T Pro is also ergonomic and easy to use. The volume rocker and power button are located on the right side, and easily accessible when using it with one hand.

The rest of the phone is similar to any other smartphone. At the bottom, we’ll find the USB-C port, one of two loud speakers, and the dual-sim card slot. The left side is clean, while the top features the earpiece and the other loudspeaker.

Display, Multimedia, and Biometrics

As for the display, the Xiaomi 17T Pro features a 6.83-inch FHD+ LTPO pOLED panel with up to 144Hz refresh rate and 3500 nits peak brightness. And it’s Widevine L1 certified with support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

Do the specs seem familiar? Well, that’s because it appears to be a carryover from the previous Xiaomi 15T Pro.

There’s no question it’s a beautiful display, and it’s understandable why Xiaomi didn’t see the need to upgrade the display further. The colors are vivid with great contrast, and the blacks are deep too.

This being an pOLED, the viewing angles are relatively decent with not a lot of color shift. For reference, pOLED uses a plastic substrate instead of a glass one as with AMOLED panels. This helps make the panel thinner, durable, and more flexible.

Either way, most consumers won’t be able to tell the difference between these OLED panels.

Together with its large size, this made the phone enjoyable for watching videos. Whether you’re watching with friends or alone, it’s a great way to catch up on the latest Netflix series or YouTube video you’ve been watching.

Not to mention the animations are smooth too with the dynamic 144Hz refresh rate. The high refresh rate is at par with gaming phones, and with the chipset this has, it is good for playing games.

As for the speakers, they’re great and loud. It has decent clarity and good separation, making it great for listening sessions. There is a noticeable lack of bass, but that’s a given with most smartphone speakers.

Still, for users who want a better listening experience, it’s best to pair their favorite bluetooth headphones or earphones.

For biometrics, users can choose between an optical in-display fingerprint scanner or face unlock. Both work fast, but we preferred using the fingerprint scanner for convenience.

Camera

As for the cameras of the Xiaomi 17T Pro, it’s arguably our favorite feature of the phone. As I mentioned earlier, the cameras are tuned by Leica featuring a 50MP main, 50MP telephoto and a 12MP ultrawide. For selfies, users get a 32MP front camera.

Considering the cameras are nearly identical to that of the flagship Xiaomi 17 except for the ultrawide, we expected nothing short of amazing photos from this phone. From capturing landscapes to portraits, this phone captures great images all throughout.

We didn’t even need to leave the regular photo mode anymore. The photos come out sharp, and there’s contrast between the highlights and shadows. Nothing is blown out even when the lighting is very harsh.

Best of all, there’s little to no noticeable difference when switching between the main camera, ultra and telephoto, at least when shooting in well-lit environments. The telephoto is even able to capture great images up to 10x zoom.

Beyond that, there is a noticeable drop in quality, but that’s understandable as it’s typical with most smartphones.

In lowlight, the main and telephoto still work superbly, but it’s here where we see the drawback of the 12MP ultrawide. It’s not as sharp, and the photos end up looking a bit soft compared to the main and telephoto. In our opinion, it’s more than adequate if users just want to take photos for social media.

As for video, the Xiaomi 17T Pro can record up to a maximum of 8K@30FPS. Similar to the images, the videos come out sharp and crisp in nearly all lighting conditions.

Even at 8K, there’s some form of stabilization, making it easy to record stable videos. There is a shoot steady mode which further stabilizes video, but it’s limited to 1080P@30FPS.

In our opinion, there’s no need to use this mode since the built-in stabilization already does wonders. Well, that’s unless you have very shaky hands.

In low light, there is a very noticeable drop in quality when shooting with the ultrawide, which is something we expected. It’s still usable, but we don’t recommend doing so since there’s a noticeable softness with the video.

With that, it’s best to use the main and telephoto when recording video in low light. Check out the gallery below to see the images and videos for yourself.

Xiaomi 17T Pro

May 23 – 25

Performance and Benchmarks

Underneath the back panel, the Xiaomi 17T Pro packs a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset. Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of fast UFS 4.1 storage.

There’s no microSD slot to expand storage further, but in our opinion this storage is more than enough for all the apps and games we want. Considering how capable the Dimensity 9500 is, we weren’t surprised it could handle nearly everything we threw at it.

For day to day use, it won’t have any issues even if users leave all their apps running in the background. We could quickly pick up where we left off, allowing users to easily multitask.

When it comes to gaming, it’s safe to say that there aren’t any issues here either. It could even run Neverness to Everness on the highest settings without any stuttering or framerate drops.

It’s one phone that we really enjoyed playing this game on, especially considering the heavy requirements and how graphic intensive the game is.

Paired with the 144Hz refresh rate, the game was very smooth, and not to mention exploring the world was very fun. With that, we’re certain the Xiaomi 17T Pro can handle most games we throw at it. So, whether you’ll be playing Genshin Impact or even lighter titles, this phone can run it all without issues.

However, the downside is when playing NTE, the phone becomes hot. It’s a bit concerningly hot, making it a bit uncomfortable to play. We suspect this has something to do with the high graphic requirements of the game, which isn’t exclusive to the 17T Pro mind you.

As for the benchmarks, we’re not surprised this phone had top score, and we’ve listed them below.

OS, Apps, and UI

For OS, the Xiaomi 17T Pro runs on Android 16 skinned with Xiaomi HyperOS 3. For those that have used a Xiaomi device before, they’ll feel right at home. But even first time users won’t have a hard time navigating through the menu, OS, and more.

Everything’s right where they should be, making it quite easy to use and learn. Of course, Google’s AI features like Circle to Search and Gemini are here and easy to access.

Xiaomi’s Hyper AI can also help make users’ lives a lot easier and more convenient. There’s the usual functions including AI Writing to help make writing work faster, and AI Dynamic Wallpapers to help customize the phone to their liking.

Given how capable the cameras are, the one users will probably take advantage of the most is AI Creativity Assistant. It’s here where users can improve the quality of their images or even remove people in the background, and more.

Battery and Connectivity

Powering the Xiaomi 17T Pro is a large 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery pack. Given how powerful the phone is, we had our expectations regarding the battery life of this phone.

Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case. It actually lasts a long time, more than enough for a day of use. Even when we took a lot of photos, videos, and used the phone to browse the net, we still had a lot of battery left.

The only time the battery drained faster was when we were playing NTE, but that’s to be expected.

The battery benchmark showed impressive results too. PCMark’s battery test recorded 20 hours and 45 minutes of battery life, while our video loop test resulted in 30 hours and 18 minutes. Both of these are impressive scores.

For charging, the Xiaomi 17T Pro comes with 100W wired HyperCharge and 50W wireless HyperCharge. It also features reverse-wired and reverse-wireless charging, allowing users to help their friends out or charge wireless accessories.

Conclusion

Overall, the Xiaomi 17T Pro is a great phone to own with everything that it can offer. It’s got a great set of cameras, a beautiful display, and a powerful chipset. There’s also a long lasting battery, which will last users more than an entire day of use.

Then again there are some compromises. For starters, it’s not the most weather resistant smartphone out there with only an IP68 rating, and the ultrawide camera isn’t exactly the best, especially compared to the main and telephoto in low light.

Still, if users want a phone that’s close to what the flagship Xiaomi 17 offers, they won’t be disappointed with the Xiaomi 17T Pro. Not to mention, it won’t be as expensive.

Price

The Xiaomi 17T Pro starts at PHP 45,999 for the 12+256GB variant, while the 12+512GB variant similar to ours retails for PHP 47,999. It’s still a lot of money, but we think it’s worth it.

We’re sure some might be able to swallow the almost PHP 10,000 difference between it and the Xiaomi 17, but for those who are on a tighter budget, they definitely won’t be disappointed by the Xiaomi 17T Pro.

But overall, what do you guys think about the Xiaomi 17T Pro. Would you cop or spend a bit more for the flagship Xiaomi 17? Whatever the case, share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:

• Beautiful display
• Capable Chipset
• Very long lasting battery

What we didn’t like:

• Ultrawide camera is not great
• A bit expensive 

Xiaomi 17T Pro specs:
6.83-inch AMOLED display @ 2772×1280 pixels
Up to 144Hz refresh rate, 3500 nits peak brightness, 1-nit ultra-dimness, 68 billion colors, DCI-P3 color gamut, DC dimming, HDR10+, Dolby Vision
Corning Gorilla Glass 7i
MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset
Octa-core CPU up to 4.21GHz
Mali G1-Ultra GPU
12GB LPDDR5X 9600Mbps RAM
256GB, 512GB, 1TB UFS 4.1 storage
50MP Leica main camera f/1.67 OIS Light Fusion 950 sensor
50MP Leica 5x telephoto camera f/3.0 OIS up to 120x AI Ultra Zoom
12MP Leica ultra-wide camera f/2.2 120° FOV
8K@30fps, 4K@120fps, 4K HDR10+@30fps/60fps, 1080p HDR10+@30fps/60fps, 720p@30fps, Log video up to 4K@30fps/60fps, Movie mode up to 4K@60fps video
32MP front-facing camera f/2.2 90° FOV
5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE FDD/TDD, 3G WCDMA, 2G GSM, dual SIM (nano SIM + nano SIM | nano SIM + eSIM | eSIM + eSIM)
Wi-Fi 7
Bluetooth 6.0
NFC
IP68 Rating
USB Type-C
Powered by Xiaomi HyperOS
7000mAh silicon-carbon battery, 100W wired HyperCharge, 50W wireless HyperCharge, 22.5W wired reverse charging
Deep Blue, Deep Violet, Black
162.2mm x 77.5mm x 8.25mm
219g